


System Failed

by cheshiresmiling



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Gen, Illustrated, Multi, Trolls on Earth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 04:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1805116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshiresmiling/pseuds/cheshiresmiling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the Imperial City. It doesn't compare to it's equivalent on Alternia, but not a whole lot on Earth does. It's got the highest troll population of anywhere on Earth, though, and the royal family lives here. As much as you don't like the place, you have to admit that it has its advantages, especially in your line of work.</p>
<p>You are the Signless, and you are the face of this revolution.</p>
<p>AO3 mirror for a cyberpunk fanadventure hosted at system-failed.tumblr.com.</p>
            </blockquote>





	System Failed

> System Failed

 

This is the Imperial City.  
You don’t think it really compares to its equivalent on Alternia, but you may just be homesick. Regardless of what you think about it, it boasts the single highest Troll population of any place on Earth, and it is the closest thing you have to a home.  
It’s also where the royal family lives, and it’s an absolute fucking tourist trap. There are parts of this city that completely disgust you to walk through. Fucking humans. Most of them have grown up alongside trolls, but sometimes they still can’t muster up the basic decency not to stare like you’re all animals in a zoo.  
You’re kind of angry about that.  
You’re kind of angry about a lot of things.

 

But that anger is what you need. You would not be the troll you are today without it.

 

You are THE SIGNLESS. And you are the FACE OF THIS REVOLUTION.

> Signless: Recieve rude awakening.

 

>  
> 
> ANNOUNCEMENT: Drones incoming, please evacuate the area. I repeat, we have drones incoming, please evacuate.

 

Fuck.

 

> Signless: Get those people to safety. You are nothing without your movement!  
You would love to do that. You really would. You’ve learned from experience, though, that by the time Lalonde is picking up on the drones bearing down on you, the danger is too close to get them out and you away before they’re here.  
You may not be anything without your movement, but your movement still needs its leader.  
You’re just going to have to trust that your security can handle this.

> Signless: Relocate. Quickly. You don’t actually get a choice in this matter. Apparently, you took too long in reacting to the news, and the choice to run is being made for you. Goddamn fucking overprotective friends. You can run on your own, thank you very much.

>   
>  PSIIONIIC: come on a22hole ii’m not goiing two waiit for you all day!   
>  PSIIONIIC: iif you 2tart takiing any longer ii am goiing two leave you two the drone2, don’t even te2t me.   
>  SIGNLESS: OH, THAT’S RICH.   
>  SIGNLESS: I TAKE THREE SECONDS, AND YOU PULL ME OFF STAGE - BY MY NECK, FUCK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THAT, BY THE WAY - AND THEN!   
>  SIGNLESS: AND THIS IS THE BEST PART!   
>  SIGNLESS: TAKE EVEN MORE TIME BERATING ME FOR TAKING TOO LONG.   
>  SIGNLESS: I HOPE YOU CHOKE, CAPTOR.   
> 

You leave the stage behind you and don’t look back. You’re not sure if everyone’s gotten out, and you’re not going to check. You don’t need that to worry about right now, nobody does.

Right now, you just need to think about getting back to your moirail.

> Be the concerned Moirail.  
You try to be the concerned moirail. However, she appears to be too busy worrying over the location of the SIGNLESS to be of much interest to a curious narrator.  
You’re just going to have to wait to be her for a while.  
However, there is this LOVELY YOUNG WOMAN over here who appears to be free. Why don’t you try being her, for now?

> Be the other girl.  
You are now ROSE LALONDE, and you have been dead for three years. You had, when you were still alive, occasionally wondered about what happened post-mortem, but not once did you think that it would involve your mind inside a SYNTHETIC BODY.  
To put it more simply, you are A ROBOT. GYNOID is the more appropriate term, but so few of your friends seem to remember the distinction that you don’t let yourself get caught up in semantics.  
Your friends also jokingly call you THE ORACLE, and you suppose there is some truth to that. While you are confined to this house - which, so long as your legal status remains dead, you are - you are CONNECTED TO THE CITY. Any systems you can get into without being detected, you are in, granting you access to cameras, police and security transmissions, and all sorts of information, secret and not. You like to think this makes you something close to OMNISCIENT.  
For example, you are watching the Signless make a hasty retreat from one of his demonstrations on your advice. You are transmitting an escape route back to the rebellion’s base of operations to his psionic escort, and you estimate their time of arrival to be within the hour.  
What will you do?

> Rose: Check up on other agents of the Rebellion.  
Well, that’s certainly easy enough. With the risk involved in the life you lead, many of you are confined to hiding. As such, your base of operations has to double as a home for a good number of the most central agents. Besides you, there are currently four not out on other errands.  
However, at the moment, you are only at liberty to discuss THREE of your EIGHT colleagues. Your options are ROXY LALONDE, JANE CROCKER, and JADE HARLEY.  
Who would you like to introduce first?

> Introduce Jane Crocker  
JANE CROCKER is the heiress to the throne, and, if you were anyone outside of this one group, the last person you would expect to be a part of it. She is, to the public eye, every part the perfect princess. She does what the Condesce commands, makes the best impressions at all the public events, and is well-mannered and friendly.  
You, of course, know the truth.  
Jane hates the Empress as much as anyone in the rebellion, and you can not think of a more advantageous ally. She isn’t meant to be a ruler so much as a puppet to leave in control of the planet while the real ruler moves on, and so she isn’t privy to as much information as she could be. But, it is still comforting to know that, even if your initial plan fails, Jane is still the one being given Earth.

> Introduce Jade Harley  
JADE HARLEY is Jane’s cousin, and is also considered nobility. However, much like her brother, she doesn’t seem to care much for that life, and prefers to spend her time tinkering and adventuring. She’s never been particularly fond of all the social protocol and delicacy that goes into making public appearances and trying to give a good impression of the royal family, and you have many fond memories of Jade’s stories of getting out of these obligations. The Harley siblings have been a consistent source of embarrassment for the Empress, and entertainment for nearly everyone else, for years.  
She is a genius, though, and you are not just saying that because you’ve been good friends since childhood. The Empress knows it, too, and it’s the only reason she tolerates what borders on outright insubordination from both her and Jake.So long as Jade’s genius can continue to be used for the Condesce’s army, she doesn’t seem to mind so much what she does in the rest of her time. And as long as she keeps leaking relevant information when your group needs to hear it, none of you care that her gun is, for the time being, in the service of the Empress.

ROXY LALONDE is your sister. She is three years older than you, and unlike you, is very much alive. You intend to keep her that way.  
Roxy has always been more technologically-minded than you have, and it speaks to her abilities that, even now, you are impressed by the things she can do. You have her to thank for a great deal of your knowledge of your own workings, and she was the one who taught you most of what you know about getting around security, getting your hands on as much information as you possibly can. Still, she blows you away when it comes to much of anything more than that, and you leave the complicated hacking to her and Psionic. Between the three of you, you sometimes doubt that there is anything you couldn’t get into.  
More than either of these things, though, Roxy is excellent company. What you do is dangerous, and serious, and more often than not, it’s by her influence that you are all kept light-hearted and sane. Of course, she’s far from the only one, but she’s often the loudest voice agreeing, and the first to start planning the party.  
Now that you’ve gotten that exposition out of the way, you suppose it’s time to get to work. You all have important things to do, after all.  
What will you do?.

> Rose: Check on the Signless.  
That’s probably a good idea. You’ve let yourself get distracted in reminiscing, when you should really be paying attention to the possible trouble your “fearless leader” has gotten into. You have every confidence that he will get out of there before the drones arrive, but you know all too well what happens if he doesn’t.  
You concentrate on finding him and the Psiioniic again.

> SIGNLESS: WHERE IN THE NAME OF FUCK IS EGBERT.  
>  SIGNLESS: HE HAS A JOB TO BE DOING, AND WHATEVER HE IS UP TO RIGHT NOW SURE AS HELL ISN’T IT.  
>  SIGNLESS: WHAT HAPPENED TO KEEPING THE DRONES OFF MY BACK?  
>  SIGNLESS: SERIOUSLY, WHAT. BECAUSE FROM HERE, THIS SEEMED LIKE A PRETTY SIMPLE PLAN.  
>  SIGNLESS: HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE THAT ONE SINGLE SHITTY HUMAN CAN BE SO BLISTERINGLY INCOMPETENT.

He finds you first.

> Okay, now be the concerned Moirail.  
You succeed brilliantly.

> Feferi: Stop fretting and hug your moirail!

>   
>  FEFERI: CRABCATC)(!   
>  FEFERI: Are you okay? I was so WORRI—ED!   
>  KARKAT: HEY! HEY, FEFERI, WATCH IT.   
>  KARKAT: I’M PRETTY SURE I STILL NEED ALL THESE ORGANS.   
>  FEFERI: You are okay t)(oug)(, rig)(t? You lost t)(e drones?   
>  SOLLUX: we’re fiine.   
>  SOLLUX: ii don’t thiink they even 2aw where we went.   
> 

>   
>  SOLLUX: ii do want two know where john got hii2 a22 off two though.   
>  SOLLUX: kk’2 got a poiint. wa2n’t he 2uppo2ed two be able to keep the drone2 off our collective a22e2 for long enough two at lea2t fiinii2h the damn 2peech thii2 tiime?   
>  ROSE: A question for the ages, really.   
>  ROSE: If you’ll be patient for a minute, you’ll be able to ask him yourself.   
>  KARKAT: EGBERT’S ON HIS WAY?   
>  KARKAT: WAIT, WE’RE NOT EXPECTING HIM BACK FOR ANOTHER COUPLE HOURS.   
>  KARKAT: WHAT’S THE DEAL?   
>  ROXY: johnnys not sayin   
>  ROXY: inseucre lines n all   
>  ROXY: insecure*   
>  ROSE: The answer, as usual, is no one.   
>  ROSE: But he’s right to be cautious.   
> 

>John: Go home. You’re already on your way. You know Karkat’s not going to be very happy with you when you get there, but you don’t really care about that. It can be kind of hard to care about Karkat being angry, sometimes. Sure, he shouts and gets pretty worked up, but that’s pretty much exactly how he acts when you’re playing video games or whatever. Not that you do a whole lot of playing video games any more. Things have gotten pretty serious for you guys lately. You’re behind this rebellion, all the way. The Batterwitch might be your grandma, but she’s pretty heinous. You know everything would be better off with the power in different hands. But knowing that and running a full-scale rebellion out of your basement are very different things! You believe in your cause, but sometimes you just want to goof off with your friends. You have a feeling that you are looking at the beginning of something big.

>John: Explain your early arrival.

> KARKAT: THERE YOU ARE.

Yeah, you called it. You’ve barely even walked in the door, and he’s already in your face.

>   
>  KARKAT: YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE KEEPING HER OCCUPIED.   
>  KARKAT: THAT’S NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM FOR YOU BEFORE.   
>  KARKAT: WHAT   
>  KARKAT: IS   
>  KARKAT: THE DEAL.   
>  KARKAT: I CAME WAY TOO CLOSE TO HORRIBLE DEATH BY DRONE BECAUSE OF THIS, JOHN, SO YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A ***REALLY*** FUCKING GOOD EXPLANATION.   
>  JOHN: jeez, karkat, if you’d let me get a word in!   
>  JOHN: there wasn’t really much i could do about it, okay?   
>  JOHN: she kind of ordered me to go home.   
>  JOHN: actually, she kind of ordered everyone to go home.   
> 

>   
>  JOHN: she wanted to be able to take care of you.   
>  JOHN: full attention, no distractions.   
>  KARKAT: OH, SHIT.   
>  JOHN: yeah.   
>  ROSE: So.   
>  ROSE: We’re a real threat now, are we?   
>  DAVE: from the sound of things yeah   
>  DAVE: we got a little too much support its making her nervous   
>  DAVE: nothing major yet but yknow   
>  DAVE: beefing up security   
>  DAVE: patrols and shit   
>  DAVE: dont think were looking at raids or anything yet but yknow   
>  ROSE: We should get a warning out.   
> 

> Rose: Send out a warning, all channels. As soon as you’ve gotten the approval from your leader, you are connecting into every safe channel you can get your digital fingers into. Usually, for the sake of safety and being discreet, you stick to only one or two that you know your followers will be watching. If the Condesce is aware of your group as a threat, discretion takes a backseat. Right now, you can’t afford to have anyone missing the memo. Everyone associated with you needs to know of the danger they may be in.

> ROSE: Urgent warning. We are no longer just a few angry voices in the eyes of the Empire. Exercise caution.

> ROSE: The Signless can no longer promise to protect you. Everything we do from here on out, we do knowing the risk.

> ROSE: We can not force you into action. It is up to you to make the right choice.

> ROSE: This is no longer just a rebellion.

> ROSE: We are at war.

END PROLOGUE


End file.
